Icarus LXVI, Issue 2

“And I will sit right down, waiting for the gift of sound and vision,And I will sing, waiting for the gift of sound and vision”— David Bowie

First, there is the beauty of the printed page. Thin symbols evoke elsewheres, serifs carry the eye, letters slip from consciousness, and other worlds take hold. This alone could be enough. But there is more. There is music in these pieces—the sound is important, often for no reason. You could say the delights are passive, but listening is an active thing. Make these pages sheet music; you, their curious instrument.

Find a favourite, find yourself alone. If only for a moment, feel these words as though they were your own.

We have photographs here—really we do. They depictimages of deserts and dunes and I feel like I knowwhat the Sahara looks like with immense wavesand infinite grains of the most golden sands thatphotoshop can create.

But the photographs are not of the Sahara. I don’treally know where they were taken. The captionsread Iran but I don’t believe them because the worldoutside my window has trees and skyscrapers.

I know our metropolis and our protruding cityskyline and the way the mountains lookfreshly covered with snow. I know the grapefruit treesand sound of the lap of the Caspian Seaagainst its grainy sandy banks.

We have photographs here—but we know, we see, through the careful façade. We have photographshere, but why do they lie?

A dim concrete room. The lighting is a wash of streetlight sodium orange. There is a low rectangular crate serving as a crude table downstage centre. Two chairs, one a busted up lawn chair and the other an old office chair with wheels, are at the Up Right and Up Left corners respectively of the crate. The room is filled with rubbish—stray bits of paper, empty cans and bottles, etc. A good portion of these are wine bottles, including one on the table with a wilting rose in it. Crude eating implements and food scraps are on the crate too. An old wooden handled mop is on the floor beside the crate. ‘I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire’ by the Ink Spots is heard, muffled. After a moment, a sound like a slamming door is heard and Fran and Frank come in. Both are decrepit. Their clothes are shabby. They’re wearing many layers of dirt and clothing. They waltz clumsily around as the music plays and collapse, laughing, side by side when the song finishes. They are now sitting with their backs to the crates and facing the audience. They overcome their laughter and frank reaches over his shoulder to hand the rose to fran. She acts surprised and does a fake ‘gasp.’

Fran: Oh, darling! You’re so good to me! And it’s not even my birthday!

Fran: Oh I love surprises! Imagine getting your own birthday for a surprise. I feel blessed to have you dear heart.

Frank: Oh my honey pie, I would give you the stars and the moon and all could I but find them.

Fran: Stars?

Frank: Like lights way up where no one can ever touch them, just look at them and write poems.

Fran: (pretending to understand) Oh…they sound precious. Frank?

Frank: Yes my sweet Fran?

Fran: Could I ask for one more special birthday treat?

Frank: On this day you could ask for the world and I’d give it.

Fran: I want to go sailing Frank, like how you told me. Remember, the big wooden room-with-roof that kind of flies over water, only not in a puddle (gestures to damp corner of the room) but way bigger, like bigger than even everything.

Frank: (hesitating) Of course. Of course we can go sailing. But you need to close your eyes, okay?

Fran: (excitedly, childlike) Okay Frank, whatever you say.

Frank: (leading her tenderly to kneel on the office chair, facing over the backrest) Lets go then, close those eyes. Okay, now climb up here. Good, you’re in the captain’s chair now. Here (handing her the mop), this is your oar. You use it to push yourself forward over the water. Yes! You’re a natural! Now the faster you go, the more wind you’ll feel! Remember the wind? I’ll tell you a story about it later. Good, good!

Fran continues around the room, using the mop to push the chair forward. Her eyes remain tightly shut. Frank coaches her around, occasionally simulating wind by blowing in her face. He does most of the work, pushing the chair. They stop when fran feels tired. Frank is near exhausted by this point, but he still smiles. He leads fran off the chair and back to sitting on the ground. He collects himself a moment, then sits beside her.

Frank: Okay, now you can open your eyes again.

Fran: That was amazing Frank! I felt wind, just like you said. We were going so fast. This is the best birthday ever.

Frank: (begins clearing away the detritus from the crate) Yes, it was really special. Shall I tell you that story now? About the wind?

Fran: No, I think I’m finished with my birthday for today. You can tell me about the wind all tomorrow, for Christmas.

Frank: (lies down on the crate facing the audience. He gets increasingly drowsy as he speaks and drops off at the end of these lines)That’s a clever idea. We’ll have a party, a real feast, and when we’re fat and full of turkey and wine I’ll tell you all the old stories in my head.

Franbegins singing ‘Funny Valentine’ in the style of Ella Fitzgerald. Accompanying music swells up as she sings and cuts out abruptly when she stops. She falters towards the end and grows quiet a moment.

Fran: OH MY GOD FRANK WAKE UP!

Frank: (jolting up and falling off the crate) AHH! What? What is it? Are you hurt?

Fran: No, I just remembered something!

Frank: Really? What did you remember?

Fran: Valentines Day! I know what it is now.

Frank: Is it like the stars?

Fran: It’s a thing like ‘birthday,’ but for both of us.

Frank: Do we both go sailing on Valentine’s Day?

Fran: No, it’s… it’s like birthday but for love. That’s it, it’s love’s birthday, and we celebrate it together.

Frank: I’ve had a lot of birthday today, I’m not sure I can do anymore

Fran: I’ll do this one. Come here, lay down on my lap and we’ll do Valentine’s.

Frank: (comes around to lay his head in Fran’s lap) This is nice. What do we do for Valentine’s Day?

Fran: It’s a special day for love, so maybe I can tell you about where love comes from?

Frank: Do you know?

Fran: No.

Frank: So, how will you tell me if you don’t know it?

Fran: Hush now. I’ll tell you the story, and if you don’t like it, then we can fix it, okay?

Frank: I like that. I’ll listen quietly, and you tell me when it’s over.

Fran: Let’s see then…Long way back ago, before everything, there was nothing. No wind or birthdays or wine or Christmas, just nothing. Then one day a man found all this nothing and—

Frank: What was his name?

Fran: Francis. Now hush. So the man found all this nothing and he said to himself, “It sure is cold and dark out here in all this nothing.” Then he made a room. He filled it full of food and wine and things, and then he made another one but he didn’t put anything in here. This was going to be all for him to just be in. The man had some bread and some wine and he said to himself “It sure is quiet in here.” So, the man made up music. He thought up all these clever rhymes and rhythms and they were beautiful. But the man couldn’t make them sound right. He could think how they should be, but he just couldn’t get right. This made the man sad, and he had more wine. Then the man had his best idea yet. He went out into all that nothing outside his clever little rooms and he found a woman. She was lost in the nothing too and she was so happy that he found her. They went back to his clever little rooms and he shared all his wine and bread and everything with her. They were very happy, but the man was still sad. See, he loved to bring all his clever little plans to life but music was still something he couldn’t make work. Then he had another idea. He asked the woman to try to sing for him. She tried it, and she got it right away. The man was as happy as he had ever been, and this made the woman happy too. She sang and sang and sang all the time and he wrote and wrote and wrote all the time, all these clever little songs and stories for her tossing. They were very happy. For a very long time. Then the man realised something. He had forgotten almost everything. He forgot the nothing and the way to do anything but listen to music or write it, and so did the woman. They were upset for a very long time. Then, the man had the best idea. He would read all his songs and learn again and they could be happy. So they had some more wine and tried to find all the old things they once knew together. They worked very hard all the time and they had fun.

Frank: But when does love come in?

Fran: I thought I told you to hush up and listen? That’s the really clever bit. See, love was there all the time. When they were happy and making all that music together, they made love too. A happy little accident.

Frank: So did they lose love too? Could they ever find it again? (laying down on the crate again)

Fran: You can’t lose love. It sticks right to you, right on your skin, so that you can’t ever get rid of it, even if you try.

Frank: That’s a nice story. (nods off)

Fran:Yes. Yes, it’s pretty little story.

A pregnant pause, then she softly begins to sing ‘Dream a Little Dream of Me.’ As before the music swells up wvith her, but she stays more subdued this time. After the first verse she takes the mop and imitates a head-on-each-others-shoulders slow dance. The lights fade out slowly with the music to the point where she finishes a capella for two lines. She walks off stage right as the lights die.

The four tiny milk cartonson the tea tray in my latest hotel roomfill me with my favourite type of loneliness, my out of date battery radio plays James Taylorand I can’t see the sunset from my windowbut I know from the warm glow on the mountainsthat it’s brilliant and I’m missing itand that stills my mind and empties itso I can lie face up on these clean sheetsnot waiting for anything.

If a bird flew at my window and stunned itselfI would rescue it so gently, I’d cup my hands around it so it was safeand hold it till its frenzied heart slowed, and when I felt it soften and give way to calmnessI would release it, I would only then free it, because nothing can fly if it doesn’t itself believe in itand as my small bird flew offand vanished in the tree lineI would fill up with the lighter breathof someone who had just that momentfreed something. My Counsellor wants me to explainwhy I like hotel rooms, she reminds me of some Newsreaderwho doesn’t seem to knowthat if she didn’t show up for work one eveningthings would keep on happening—that everything doesn’t always needto be remarked on.

She says Tell me how it feels thereand I laugh, forgetting, that with herthis is the route to more and more questions—Why? she says why are you laughing?and I say For me it is self-evident.And she says I don’t know what you mean there,and have you noticed how you’ve got your arms crossed?Do you feel defensive?

And I say I like hotel roomsand driving long distances for me the reasons are self-evidentand she raises one brow at mein a move that looks practicedand says what are you scared of? and I think nothing, nothing, nothingbut I wish someone would cup me in their handsuntil my heart calmeduntil I believed I could do itand only then release me.

In our town we gave names to beggars, the eccentricand the mad—for instance there was a womanwho we christened Iris De Mental and she collectedanything that crackled and anything that rattledand then stowed it all in zip-up nylon bagswhich she swung from each hand so they scraped loudlyon her plastic raincoat and she had armfulsof cheap charm bracelets that jangled on everybody’s nervesand made it worse, she had loose shoes with steel tipswhich she clattered on purpose down loosely cobbled streets, she’d a necklace made of empty plastic cups that set upa cacophony when she walked, and when she wasat her most afflicted she would make herself a tailfrom crime scene tape and empty cans of cokeand hang it from the waistband of her skirtso that everywhere she went things got discordantand raucous and she loved this, she loved it whendogs scattered, cats wailed, children criedand even songbirds went off key and squawked.Iris De Mental once mentioned that what she feared mostwas silence, hollow people and not really existingand ever since I met you I don’t know what they call mebut I feel empty, I keep my radio on at night timeand well into morning and sometimes I lie here thinkingof Iris De Mental who reckoned that if she assembledenough husks of things together it might be possibleto make something of substance from them.

Feel the dead heat of the quietening street, see the early evening houses and the shutterson the shops. Look at the row of highrise balconieswith their Aloe Vera plants. See this door and behind it the tile-floored hallway?Look at the outdoor shoes abandoned carelesslyby going-about-their-business feet?Look in here and see shelves full of booksand the loose skinned handsthat choose one, thumb it and put it back? Hear the sigh as someone older sits downand now the tell-tale evenness of breaththat tells you sleep is near. Shhh now, come in here—see the saucepans, turmeric, ginger, onionsand the glistening guts of something? See the strong-backed person cooking? Her flush blood-orange cheeks? Over here—see the empty good room? With photos of the girl’s first day at schoolher plump-armed prize for maths, see her seven year-old gaptooth grin?And now in the bathroom this very minutesee her neck nape exposed and olderas she kneels beside the bath, see the henna swirl maroonish in the waterthen disappear, see the soles of her bare feet, see her calf muscles curve and how her skirtis caught in behind her knees? From the street below, listen to the overheating engineof her teenage brother’s car as he tries to park itsee his sinewy biceps strain while he reverses inexpertlyhis slim thighs pressed against the seat, seeon his unlined forehead the freshnessof glistening beads of sweat, now watch him slam the car doorand turn this way while the lazy street cat looksat him unimpressed before settling back to lick itself, then freeze all this and think of itblown to smithereensthis, all this, is what a bomb hits.

In that evernight when I was strewnacross continents a black dog came to find me. At the ebb end of carnival weekwhen all fervour was abating but adrenalinkept flowing nowhere and for nothingwhen my own heart kept catastrophically pulsingher cold canine nose pressed against my palmand calmed me. When dead-faced peoplestalked me in San Cristobel and gesticulatedthat I should go with themacross a darkly shadowed wastelandthe black dog demurred on my behalfand I stayed with her until safety beckoned.Later on when I was ghoststruckand sleepless in a dead historian’s star-lit courtyarda black dog barking in the distancefilled up every hour of the night for meand made me rest thereuntil everything was brighteruntil my heart calmed.

The weeks had been long. Pausing on the basalt ridges,and toiling slowly down The exposed ribs of the earth,Campfire song did little to dispel The insistent rebirth Found in the winds of dark highlands.

The land grew lower, And noon shadows huddled tighter;They slept well beneath fretted cliffs In the red Habala valley.The bleak scree and shingle down the slopes grew whiter, And tamarisk trees became signs of life and God.

On one tree beside an ancient well Torn cloth of white and red was hung,A message from the other travellers who made these journeys That “life is endless and distances can be overcome.”

Yet as they rested and drank and panted And felt the smell of the salt on their skin,The sun beat down their intricate eyes And memories of longed for goodness and incidental sin.They did not wish for communion With endless caravans and migrations of tribes,For they knew that Arabia was nothing Compared to the desert of a soul. With a sigh they unfolded their tents.

“Mack, I’ve told you three times now: set 48 to 35 and we will get going from there.”

“Will do.”

Sni….ip. Cuts fine through the rubber, and then the copper too. The black ropes stream down from high above as an eternal waterfall. I can reach in and grab them. Ha, and pull - Sh! God might hear me.

They are endless, endless. I wonder where they begin. “How far?”

The low rumble rises to suffocate the rhetoric. Black wires, I wonder what color they are.

The light, flashlight, I have a flashlight. Solder, 35 and 48. “Dammit!” Bright blue fire! Damn.

Watching it melt, it’s nice to see the metal melt. The tons sheet metal are grinding each other again, their screeching howling. At it again, ah bruisin’ boys. They won’t melt each other. It is I who mel—

“Hey Mack, you alright? It’s simple, what’s taking you so long?”

Solder, bring wire A to Wire B and metal. Done. Done, I have accomplished the task, and conjoined the world from down below to the world high above, wherever, far off, those worlds are. Done Done Done.

“Done, I’m fine.”

“Okay, give us a couple minutes up top. Can you stay down there?”

“Merrily”

“Yeah, alright. Give us just a minute.”

“However you please.”

Up up up, it’s so dark! I can’t—ahh, flashlight! Blue fire! All those blue wires running up high, all cramming into that little mouth. How they topple over each other, like pups, piglets, lions. They are like lions! I wonder what the walls feel like. Cold, I should have thought. Cold layers of wires. I wonder if they keep time. If no one is around to see a black wire in the dark, does it keep time? It might tell time. I wonder how many courses go through each wire. What does it say? What does this wire say?

I bring you from the stampede of the hungry. You, I have selected. How do you beseech me, your master? What shall you wish? Shall I cut off your head? I could very well do that. What could you say? I see you shaking. You fear me, don’t you? You do. I know you do. I am ferocious. I am. I hold you in my hands. And it will be the accident that—just like that, and now you are ended. You have begun and ended. Ha, meager slave! So easy to cut off your head!

“Mack, I’m not getting any signals on 24, could you check on that?”

“Sure thing boss.”

Ahh, and God’s obliged once again to bring life to the dead. I resurrect you, stupid thing, through steaming copper—my elixir of your life. Does this make you happy? Do you see? Do you remember death, you petty thing? Ahh, now the signals course through your veins. Do you feel like copper? Do you taste the metal? You don’t care, you are copper, and I am—I am—

“Mack, cut 25 and 37, solder those two, and then 23 and 29, solder them as well, got it?”

Aye boss, I got ye.

“Yes indeed, 25—37, 23—29.”

25, 25, 25 … Where is 25? There is black wire 1, black wire 2, black wire 3, where is 25? 25, 25, 25, 25, 25. Ah, there! 25. Sniiip, through my soft rubbery shell into the hard firmness, right through. And where is—ahh—37? … 37, 37, 37 … 37! Sniiip, once again, and again and again and again! Snip snip snip! What was that? 25—37. A stroke of my power pack, my smoky fire stick, and voilà! What else? What else? That is a peculiar question, what else?

Should I dare ask such a presumptuous question? From the world far below up to the world high above, what was, what is, “What else?”

“Mack, 23-29. What’s going on? We can get someone else to do this, you’re doing a pretty shitty job.”

“Nancy, I am the only one who can do this. I have clearance, I know the wires. You’ve got to be patient with this, hanging around suspended in the dark. You take it too quick, you’ll screw up the soldering, mix some wires—hell, hurt yourself, or lose a limb, and leave a mess down the line. Trust me. I’m fine—it’s better this way. 23-29.”

Ah, where were we? We were swinging from wire to wire, screaming as the orangutans and baboons, weren’t we? Yes, flying through the burning industry in the jungle air … It feels so, so … pure! I stretch my nostrils over these crisp crumbling walls, and breathe in deep that good old Mother Nature. Ahh, how she sings through me, as I cut and cut.

I was to the West,away from home that winter,And they told me the news.

I put the phone down,I carried on cutting vegetables.Peppers in strips, red onions in crescents,coriander in a crossways dice.I picked up the phone ten minutes later,“Yeah, I'd like to send something,”And then the guests arrived.

We skyped in Cara. Alice came up.Éibhilin brought flowers. And then at theend of the day I went back on my phoneand I cancelled tomorrow's event. It feltgood to do something, and for someone else.The change in plans.

And I asked my friends the next daywhat I would do, and I painteda picture of a whale and wrote a letter which spoke ofnothing serious,

and then I said Yes, Clare couldcome round that Thursday, andI cooked rice for Clare instead.Diced the cranberries, the cashews, thecumin and cardamom. Roughly choppedthe coriander. And steamed it for fifty minuteswith oil at the bottom to form a crispy layer.

Aubergines char-roasted androcket to cut the sweetness.We went to bed entwined aroundeach other, and got up tired,and late, for the next day.

The Researcher’s Note on the Nature of the Stygian Library“We come like a man stunned and fallen from a stairs to the question as to whether the library is a world unto itself as well as a nexus of many others, or whether it is as a forest fire to the trees and creatures of a forest: a consumption of many things by a chaotic effect from beyond spread among them.”

The Researcher’s Note on the Contents of the Stygian Library“I have notes on the references to spines. I do not know the system by which the books posit their analogy with bodies, but know that the obvious pivot is the spine. They treat their spine as the equivalent of a biological spine…”

Taxonomy of the Stygian Library“Most of the books refer to their pages as though the pages are muscular or skeletal joinings to the books’ spines. Some of the texts, however, refer to their pages as leaves, and others fins, but these may be anomalies—one catalogue describes some spines as having cancerous growths of fins and leaves...”

The Spine Many of the books refer to logical errors as spinal deformities, and claim that the sum of their logical deformities results in the imagination of one who has read and internalized the contents and spirit of these books, in the appearance of a twisted, mile-long spine, which transcends dimensions and earthly logic, and which never leaves the mind.

Styx, PrefaceThe river Styx, contorted into the ripe aptitude of spinal metaphor or simile, but held from it a slight distance, being not quite sufficiently spinal and scoliotic for that analogy to be appropriate without qualification, or without the residue in this description of evidence of deliberation during its composition, or even of hesitation, was nonetheless spinal and contorted enough to herald a mention of the Man With Scoliosis and the Mile-Long Spine.

The Arrival of the Man with Scoliosis and the Mile-Long Spine He would come, he would come: that man whose body would be incarnated inside the imaginations of those who read of him, obliquely and ignorantly, in the strange books of his library, where hundreds of bizarre images and paradoxes formed the imaginary tissue that became his flesh.

ParodyTerrified by the growth of strange images in her imagination, and striving to lighten her fear, the researcher wrote The Lover of the Man with Scoliosis and The Mile-Long Spine, a tiny burlesque in the style of the analects, which made light of certain unsettling images.

From the Researcher’s Notes on the Stygian Library“One footnote, from a book comparatively spare in self-referential conceits (MS Epsilon MMII), refers to its footnotes as tumours. One passage from another book (MS Theta XXIV, pp. 987–1000) is a treatise on the pain the codex claims to suffer from its ink, which it refers to as ‘that atramentous cancer of paper.’ Compile notes for a taxonomic oncology...”

Bodies Abyssal and Celestial: Subtle Bodies of ContradictionFigure One: A microcosm of a cosmos vaster and more simple than the one in which it is represented; an ambassador of a world whose only possible form is its representation in another.

Contents of the Stygian LibraryBooks on anatomy, which presumed the most disfigured of bodies to be typical human specimens; books on zoology, which described chimeric and impossible animals; books of scholastic theology, which described an alien and unsettling God; books on general metaphysics, which described an incoherent universe; books of prophecy; which were agitated and obscure; books of chronology, which described incomprehensible events; books of geography, which treated only of subterranean realms; and books of medicine, which described “diseases of existence” that resembled books.

EquivalenceThe books of the Stygian Library folded things of the outside world into their own. They were not internally consistent, nor consistent with the outer world, but they converged into another world as they blurred and bled, and as they fused and tendon-joined, into each other through metaphor.

Stygian ArchitectureThe contents of the metaphysical books in the Stygian Library were one with the architecture of the Library; the metaphors and paradoxes of the Stygian treatises fused to form the osseous design of that building in the imagination of one who had internalized them, and the design was that of a misshapen vertebra on a mile-long spine.

ExhibitionIn some books of the Stygian Library were lists and illustrations of diseases and atrocities, accompanied by commentaries that explicated them as new models of the universe.

The Land Whose Vaporous Ambassadors We Know as NightmaresThe Man with Scoliosis and the Mile-Long Spine, a pure and terrible import from the land whose vaporous ambassadors we know as nightmares, was the organizational principle of the Stygian Library, whose books were written and arranged to deliver him into the mind of one who studied there.

There’s a customDown my wayAnd yours tooProbablyOf putting children’s socksOn the metal spikeOf a gate. I wonder why people do this. Will the owner come backTo reclaim their lost sock?What if they don’t have a lot of pairs?Or do we just not have the heartTo bin them?Maybe they remind usOf our own babies,Their curly toesAnd needy mouths.Maybe we can’t bear to thinkOf chilly feetOn winter days.Maybe pink socksAnd blue socksAnd yellow socksBring colour. Or maybeWe’ve just seen others do itAnd decide not to questionThis strange custom.

They sit in a dark room, dark panelled wood, and the grains of the dark wood table between them.

“But what about the people who fall through the cracks?”

His hands were gripping, slightly, the edge of the table.

“Fall through the cracks in time? What about them; think about it.” A pause for breath.

“Why don’t you think about it this way. You take a plane that can fly faster than the speed of sound—supersonic—and you fly it around the world. It flies faster than the sun, faster than the world turns. You understand the idea of flying West and being able to make the sun set in the East.”

The other questioned him.

“The classic example is Concorde back in the last century. There would be stories of passengers who’d seen the sun set in the East. Why? Tell me—it’s not meant to do that. It’s strange. It’s unsettling. It appears a horrible illusion.

“But it’s not an illusion. The passengers flew faster than sound. At that speed you can fly across six time zones to New York in less than six hours. You can make the sun set behind you.”

The other spoke again, once.

“You’ve got to imagine what this means in the bigger picture. A broader spectrum, if you will.”

I studied his face.

“Okay. Speak to me.”

“This is what I imagine. You take off from Paris in your supersonic airliner, and it’s dark, it’s night-time—the end of the 27th, let’s say. And as you fly west the sun comes up in front of you. You overtake it. It’s not the dawn of the 28th; you’re overtaking the sun. You’re back in the 27th.

“What I posture is that if you fly long enough, you’ll find it going down behind you, ready not for the night but ready to signal the start of the day—the dawn of the 27th.

“If you keep your plane refuelled in the air you chase the days backwards until you arrive in the 15th, let’s say. Logic dictates it isn’t possible. You’ve chased the sunset and won, thirteen times. You’ve rewound time.”

They look at each other.

“I follow.”

Neither moved.

“It was tried once. Not with an airliner. With a military jet. What do you think happened?”

The sound of his watch ticks from his wrist.

“There’s no record. We don’t know.”

“I think I have a hypothesis.”

A silent breath.

“Speak to me.”

He takes another breath.

“The normal fantasy of the time-traveller states that they woke up in the fifteenth and found everyone as they had known them a few weeks earlier, mystified by the appearance of an unscheduled aircraft. This is the idealist’s model; a perfectly functioning model of a time machine. Look closely—the same questions; the same paradox.

“There is a second hypothesis. Somewhat darker, it states that they arrived in the fifteenth and found everyone gone. Everyone was where they had left them in the 28th or the 30th. To return they would have to fly the other way, but without mission support they ran out of fuel before they could make it back. This gives a somewhat different view of time to the first: a dimension indelibly tied to our bodies and those of the other animals, but not effective upon inanimate objects. If the world persists either side of the world we are perceiving and we do not, are our consciousnesses merely the result of differences in the material landscape we inhabit?

“Secondary considerations arose upon the nature of the sun’s seeming control in the matter, whether it had somehow assumed a position as arbiter of it all, or whether it was all a coincidence founded in the accidental choice of the units of time we deal with. Interest in pagan worship of the sun was revives; more questions are raised.”

Then that dark wood table assumed a massive presence. There were splinters underneath the varnish waiting to break away; little sections of wood that waited for the varnish to be compromised—for a microscopic break, and the wood would give way.

“Unhappily, I believe this is the closer of the two. Almost. But not quite.

“What I speculate is that it happened the other way. They didn’t go backwards, but somehow went forwards. I’ll show it to you now.”

A shadow must have passed over the door then, because the two of them stopped. Now they looked over their shoulders—indiscriminate points of the wall. In time, he carried on.

“It starts like this.” He’s handling a spherical paperweight. “You have the aeroplane, which moves like this. And you have the sun, which moves at this pace. But there’s something else to keep track of. The International Date Line. And that’s the key, you see. We’ll mark it with a point.

“The sun rises on Wellington, Tokyo, Seoul, Singapore, New Delhi, Acre, Cairo, Tripoli, Paris. It makes sense from a fixed perspective that when it rises again over these cities it will be a different date. We forget that the sun never truly sets: as with the British Empire, it is always shining on some part of the globe. With this in mind, let us begin our experiment.

“We can follow the aeroplane here, and the sun chasing.” He moved two hands around the paperweight, the sun slower than the other. “It does not matter what the ratio is between their speeds. I have tried. All that is important is that the aeroplane moves faster than the sun, and then it is the same result every time.

“As the aeroplane gets to here, it has crossed the date line, and is in the 28th. The two carry around the world, and as they follow fast enough the aeroplane begins to chase the sun. The world is a sphere, remember. And let us say that it takes until the 1st of the month for this to happen; we see the sun pass the International Date Line into the 1st, and soon after the aeroplane does the same. But it has already been in the 1st so it must now be entering the second.

“As it catches up the sun we find ourselves posed with a problem. It is in the 2nd, the rest of the world is only in the 1st, and we must now wonder what to make of the dawn in front of the aircraft. Is this also the beginning of a new day? I conclude that this detail does not matter—the result is the same—it just takes longer to play out. If you follow the aeroplane and the sun around the world long enough, you undeniably find that they begin to occupy different spaces in time.

“That is what I speculate happened to that aircraft that day, and that is why I believe we have heard nothing about it since.”

The other took a long time to speak. And when he did, he looked behind him.

“So what did they find?”

His hands were not in sight.

“We can’t know what the future is made of. If it exists either side of our timelines, there is also no telling how far. Whether it is infinite, or whether we can only push it a few days before it crumbles.”

He added, “I have never seen a man live in the future tense. There are those who spend their lives immersed in their pasts, and there are those of us who live in the present moments; ‘I am speaking this now, I am reading that.’ I have never seen a man who exists in the future. It is impossible even for a fortune teller or a medium to conjecture except in the abstract. I do not believe I’d like to know.”

There was only one more thing to add.

“I believe there is a next step to this too. Something else I couldn’t consider until a friend brought it up. Twice in a year the hour changes but the sun stays in the same place. It sounds mundane, she said to me, but the potential of Daylight Savings Time is there when we learn to tap it. To change time without having to rely on the movement of the sun. That would be the key in all of this.”

Spinning words, lack of sleep, and attempts to— have moulded me and dropped me here.Beating windows. Disappearing. Strung out.Near enough to where I started. Trying not to know better. “Don’t judge people.”But here I am:Sore limbs and nostalgia. (Loaded memories I don’t care to recite.)So worried and tangled.So cruel and thoughtless.Golly, it’s all a bit endless. I’ll never be done.I don’t believe in much. But I can always count on hunger. I don’t actually think that’s true. Not so steadfast at all. Good grief.Fine, here’s a loaded memory, with an impasse, retrospectively:We are holding hands. Everything is all right. You are. Out in the park.Your skin is so fair it’s not fair, mother fucker.Your fingers smell like mustard. Mustard fingers.Maybe it’s biology. I hope so.Maybe it’s the sickness. The big show, out there.I adore you. You count on it. Calculate.Later:Red cheeks. Your colour. Mine. Familiar skin.My eyes are vibrating. Like I’m on drugs, but not as fun. It’s a start.Sometimes stuff feels nice regardless. The feeling is what matters, as we holdeach other’s faces for hours, maybe, and forget to count the years. Spend them.Jugs of blood stain your mouth. We sing in foreign languages and dance horizontal in the groggy morning and try to catch stars. There’s an attempt. A taste. A drop. The beat that drives your hips up and—inevitably—down.You’re shameless.You ask because you know the answer and can’t accept it.I don’t answer for the same reason.No my red eyes just feel red. Just perfect curves and promises I can’t make anymore.Now you’re not here, there, or anywhere.I’ll just try to have opinions. Hone skills. Have affairs. Hump logs. Hang out.Stay young at a leisurely pace. Fade out. Review, and recycle.

Transcript of the Opening Speech Delivered by Dr. K. L. Benson at the 15th Annual Tri-National Psychological Professionals Conference of Remembrance and Repentance

To begin with, Helen hates herself.

If we are to truly explore her motives, to garner a full understanding of the deep and troubling tinderbox lay in wait of the smallest catalyst to reveal her world-shaking potential [i.e. the event], this must be established as a core element of her character.

Allow me to clarify: we are not here to evaluate whether Helen should hate herself.

This line of questioning has been pursued thoroughly and exhaustively; first by Helen’s extended family and peers, and now most recently by the media, the many involved governmental agencies, and several influential international peacekeeping organizations.

No indeed. For finally, after these long decades, the fires of passion, metaphorical and otherwise, have cooled. It is time to turn a level-headed and anthropological lens on Helen, the woman of varied sobriquets from “Fuck-Up of Our Time” to “If She Ever Showed Her Sorry Ass in Here Again I’d Boil Her Bones in Vinegar” to simply “That Bitch.”

Helen grew up in a medium-sized North Eastern U.S. city which, for obvious reasons, quickly packed up and sought shameful refuge in neighboring states following the event. Out of respect for its former residents, who continually petition to erase all historical record of their Helen-producing hometown, we will refrain from mentioning its original name. Suffice to say the town contained a prestigious women’s liberal arts college and a teaching hospital, where Helen’s mother and father worked as a professor and doctor, respectively.

Little primary evidence can be gleaned to help give us a glimpse into Helen’s childhood. Naturally, when one takes into account the self-inflicted hangings, shootings, and mutilations, not to mention state sanctified reparations taking, few of Helen’s teachers are around or in any fit condition to stand testimony. However, the charred remains of Helen’s primary school records show a slightly above-average student who enjoyed running track, held the position of 4th chair flute in her marching band, and was given small non-speaking roles in school performances.

So, considering this relatively normal upbringing, what is it that could have made Helen hate herself?

Now I know, this seems an absurd question. These days any schoolchild, whether or not they have the defect, could provide me with a lengthy list of reasons why “The One Woman Holocaust” should have self-esteem issues. But remember, we are attempting to return to a time before the event. Yes, it is difficult and sometimes painful to reach back this far in our collective memory, to summon up those halcyon days, but strive we must.

Perhaps we are ignoring the obvious. While we would likely all acknowledge that Helen is an “exceptional” woman, though naturally devoid of any of the positive connotations of such a word, perhaps at an earlier time in her life Helen felt mediocre.

We must turn to the facts. Photographic evidence shows her college dorm room contained a light floral duvet, mix of posters from among Amazon’s Top 20 Bestsellers, and selection of books and CDs which, though now banned from human consumption for eternity, were entirely approved of by parents and mental health professionals of the era.

It is common knowledge that she wore her straightened hair alternately in a single plait down the back or a bun. She professed to be a “coffee person.” Her favorite food was bread.

Maybe we should look pityingly at the utterly bland, generic twenty-one-year-old that was pre-event Helen, recognizing that not even in that woman’s most feverish Ativan-muted dreams could she have conceived of a world in which conferences such as this one would focus on the lasting social, political, moral, cultural, ecological, literary, paleontological, phylogeographical, nonlineardynamical, and gynecological consequences of her existence? That billions would wonder, in sheer bewilderment and awe, why at the moment of her conception a different sperm cell could not have just picked up the pace a little bit? Maybe it is time… to forgive? To allow Helen, wherever her much speculated upon whereabouts may be, to return to society?

Like clusters of blue and yellow firesparking out of yard walls,under the oldest of softening brickthese flowers take overand yet we are told that farfrom the streets running downto the military-grey baythis display comes courtesyof an eager wish to please,so shipped from the Himalayasto greet a queen on her lastand final visit, Valerian-bedeckedlamp post and window box,razzles away in unloved lane ways,scentless, random.

Tall tip talking on the walk to AlexanderplatzAlexander, I conquer all that I seeIndustrial veins with blood of theEver flowing, incessant paint onThe ideal canvas. The museumIs a chamber.This is the public realm

We take a stroll down Karl Marx Somehow we rise on that street Through our collective plight Of comradery and our right

Expanse of the city among the clouds No horizon in sightColossus giving light, bullies inGrey concreteNo longer a faux pas retrospect is a lens grinder

This is a city which history echoes.Scars from deadly earthquakes, electric blanket centre, Pain has dragged this polis into the cutting edgeStill a nice time for a cigarette in the park,Life on the move,Warmth in my hands.

Fashion.We conquer the fashionista.We destroy the inefficient with love of millions.\The evening drink with friends at a hostelWork, let’s rebuild.

The passing of time change with breadth;Dublin, Amsterdam, Tehran, Babylon.Time is a simple affair.Here one must submit toThe clusters (& multiverse)

A night with many new friendsDrink within the mushroom coloured dormitories.Nearing ausgang. Ostbanhof awaitsFor others as well as us.

“In that moment you found out who you were. And at your age, I need to tell you; always keep faith in the beauty that moment gave. We become old and bitter when we lose belief in ourselves.”

The volume between the inside and the out is a wall I cross surprised since I was small and living in Fairview. The breadth of air carried from out there to in here I change into orange with the simple act of walking over the doorstep. Translucent blue morphs with my mouth and our smell, to make anger and sadness and contentment in front of the electric hob. Isn’t it amazing what under-counter lighting can do?

The innards of a bus on some mornings are colourless. Made icy white by a bare sky, a naked sun. Made unforgettable by a revelation. Because no beauty can be revealed without one.

Beneath my oversized head of hair I pull apart my predicament. Lust is making sounds again. The fifth time this week. This morning though, a variation. Instead of a late night snack he is delving in for an early breakfast. Here I am, listening intently to the heavy thrust of rain on the outside while attempting to ignore the penetration of fury on the in. The pair of them will be the parents of my insomnia. I am many things; tolerant and patient are neither of them. If it was love they were making, I’m sure I wouldn’t mind.

He is here and yet he has never walked through the door. I carried him gently in, unknowing. Probably in my smallest suitcase or inside the orchid’s black pot. Having been let in once he comes and goes as he pleases, like a cat. He proudly stalks the countertops, scrambling outside when my hand outstretches desperately.

Bare chested and baby bottomed, nothing under the counter can be lit now; no coffee can be made in my Italian little pot and no brown bread marmaladed. Not like this, in my current state of melancholy and undress. The sponge is not here to see me naked and scuttling to do his bidding. That’s what she is here for. Or so he thinks. So I lie here once more, with snoring after sex that isn’t mine, and no possibility of making coffee without possible embarrassment. I need to get dressed or stay here honestly naked. I could do with an armpit but am glad that I don’t have his.

Forced to remember my last, I lie cold and uncomfortable in the memory of his blue eyes. Shifting my head to the wrong end of the bed. Leather and a long time on it. In and out and in again. “There’s no lube left.” No, there certainly is not. He was impatient. And I was bored.

Sleeping in this bed is near impossible. A four foot bed; three for me and one for my thoughts. All of my memories lie flat in the dark; using up the six foot long space I give them. Always encroaching on my side of the sheets. But one foot wide isn’t enough for my vanity, not at twenty. Twenty means I need several beds and several feet, apparently. But I have this reality and it encroaches ever further on the truth.

Sweet mountains piled high at the city’s back have tugged at me from filthy seats. Two boys among them, as old as the hills, but looking into the camera as if they had never seen twenty-one. And if I don’t go too far or too fast I’ll drive on manicured pasture; land meant only for wool but made for Lady’s and their fine fur. All guarded by my mountains, the mountains. Pronouns are for heartbreak.

Where I live; it was a shed until not a month ago. When it was filled with tiles and wooden floors. The arrival of the fungal guest however brought with it the ugly green smell that comes with a corner in the ceiling. And now I see the shed again. The fresh coat didn’t last long. The sight of it stank like free buggies and scuba trolleys. And it would continue to look and smell like that, if it wasn’t for the under-counter lighting.

Banks are entrenched to their own allies. Through this ever growing babble the bay sticks its tongue between them, mocking them for their similarities. Both heaped high in mud and united by council. The DART rushes green through both. For me it is only after Dalkey you need open your eyes. I drank it in and without it I am halved.

If I said a Mako Shark had the perfect body,Would you put away the nail varnish and lipstick,The necklaces and scarves?Would you swim.

If I said that a sunflower had the perfect shape to be,Would you drop everything to run into the fields,The Lebanon or Croatia where you would lose yourself in the fields,The lipstick quietly smudging the insides of your teeth.

Would you drop everything to swim in the fields,The lipstick rushing by at three-thousand kilometres an hour,And the nail varnish cracking on the insides of your beautiful white teeth.When you quietly put away the clothes you’ve been borrowing, I ask you.Of all the bodies in the world, what made you so ready to leave my own.

I sleep.I sleep.I sleep.I sleep.I sleep.

Of all the bodies in the world, I will ask you.What made you so ready to leave my own.

Sarah Clancy is a page and performance poet from Galway. Her most recent collection The Truth and Other Stories and was published by Salmon Poetry in 2014. She has two previous collections to her name, Stacey and the Mechanical Bull (Lapwing Press, Belfast, 2011) and Thanks for Nothing, Hippies (Salmon Poetry, 2012). She has been placed or shortlisted in several of Ireland’s most prestigious written poetry competitions including The Ballymaloe International Poetry Prize and The Patrick Kavanagh Award. In performance poetry she won the Cuirt International Festival of Literature Grand Slam Championships in 2011, she was runner up in the North Beach Nights Grand Slam Final in both 2012 and 2013 and was runner up in the All-Ireland Grand Slam Championships in 2013. In 2015 she won the Bogman’s Cannon Irish People’s Poet award. Her books can be ordered from salmonpoetry.com. Tweets @sarahmaintains.

Will Fleming is a junior sophister student of English Literature and Philosophy, currently doing a year-long exchange in Amherst, Massachusetts. His poetry has been previously published in Icarus and the Attic, and he recently won a writing competition judged by Professor Philip Coleman for The Quill, the English Department newsletter.

James is a fourth year English and Drama student at Trinity College. He is a published poet in the UK, and has also seen his poetry and journalism published in Rant+Rave magazine in Dublin. His plays have been produced in Dublin’s The New Theatre, DU Players Theatre, White Lady Art, and the Trinity Rose Garden Theatre, as well as in a number of more avant-garde spaces in Trinity College by SHITE Dublin. His next play to be produced will be Mercury in The New Theatre from July 25th-6th August, and he hopes all of you might be interested in seeing it.

Alice Kinsella is a writer living in Dublin. Her work has been published internationally in a variety of publications, including Headspace magazine, The Fem literary magazine, Poethead, The Sunday Independent and Poetry Northern Ireland’s Poems for Holocaust Memorial Day 2016. In 2015 she was included in Poethead’s indices ‘Women Poets’ and ‘Contemporary Irish Women Poets.’ She is currently finishing her degree in English Literature and Philosophy at Trinity College Dublin and working on her writing.

Hugo is finishing his BA in Drama and English Literature. He has enjoyed writings words throughout his time in Trinity. He was the editor of Rant+Rave magazine. His play, We Need The Eggs, was put on in DU Players, and was also made into a short film, which was selected for the Chicago Irish Film Festival 2016. He is currently finishing a new play, Magic, which he hopes will be nice.

Jack Looby is a final year student of English and Drama here in Trinners. He has previously published poetry with the Rant+Rave, and prose with Ropes 2014. He writes drama for his course and for Sophie’s Highly Interesting Theatre Experience (SHITE), but mostly for pleasure. If you like what you read, don’t hesitate to pull his contact details from the internet and commission him. Seriously.

Tadg McLoughlin is a Senior Sophister TSM English & History student, majoring in English. In a previous life he was an unsuccessful photographer, and he hopes his next life won’t be so bleak. He has had one previous exhibition (also unsuccessful) and is tentatively planning another, exploring the psychogeography of Dublin. He also goes by ‘Bud,’ but gets embarrassed when explaining why.

SG studies English at TCD. She is a past Icarus editor and is currently Creative Editor at JoLT, and Editorial Assistant at Abridged. Her work has appeared in a number of journals over the past few years.

Michael Kemp

Michael Kemp is a Senior Sophister studying English Literature. He has published both poetry and short ficton. His work will be published in the upcoming instalments of MISC and JoLT.

Dean McHugh

Dean McHugh studies philosophy and English. His poems and essays have been published in Dublin and Toronto. Contact him at mchughde@tcd.ie.

Daniel Tatlow-Devally

Daniel Tatlow-Devally is a Senior Sophister philosophy student. His illustrations, prose and poetry have featured in various student publications, including Trinity News, the Attic and Tn2. His recent illustrations can be found at daniel-tatlowdevally.squarespace.com.

The Icarus staff acknowledges Trinity Publications and the School of English, as as well as Gemini International Limited, for making this issue possible.

Icarus is a fully participating member of the Press Council of Ireland. Serious complaints should be made to: The Editors, Icarus, Trinity Publications, Mandela House, Dublin 2. Appeals may be directed to the Press Council of Ireland.

Copyright remains with the author of each piece. Authors grant Trinity Publications an irrevocable licence to publish their work both online and in print.